05 November, 2012

Culture is not usually at the heart of EFL teachers’ concerns. This talk aims at showing how your coursebook can serve as the perfect springboard to dive into cultural issues, an essential and integral aspect of language.
I will show examples of how topics usually found in course books can be given a cultural focus and be transformed into opportunities for worthwhile discussion and learning about intercultural issues. The use of authentic materials will also be referred to as a means to engage learners in meaningful tasks that promote cultural awareness and respect. I will go over the process of adapting such course book materials, coming up with authentic cultural links and using the power of the world wide web to find and organize authentic materials that can bring these links to life and provide a meaningful opportunity for discussion and learning. This process will be made transparent and systematized for easy implementation by any teacher.

03 November, 2012

This session aims at
exploring issues and ideas related to the development and evaluation of
speaking and writing with adult learners. I will go over the main concerns
teachers have when teaching the productive skills. I will then show creative
ways to develop speaking and writing with easy-to-use technology tools both in
and out of class. We will explore examples with different web 2.0 tools and
discuss different ways to evaluate speaking and writing in a more effective
way.